


Five Stages

by difinity1



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-10
Updated: 2013-12-10
Packaged: 2018-01-04 06:32:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1077723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/difinity1/pseuds/difinity1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Covers the Doctor losing, finding, and giving up Rose. Spans from Doomsday to Journey's End.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Stages

_Denial_

He drifts. He doesn’t have a purpose. She was his north star, his guiding light. He is lost without her. She can’t be gone. He needs her. Nothing makes sense anymore. It’s like living inside of a Picasso. Maybe that’s why his paintings were so different. He didn’t have a Rose. And now neither does the Doctor.

_Anger_

The TARDIS worries. The Doctor never eats or sleeps. He spends all of his time in Rose’s room, staring at a picture of them. It was taken the Christmas he regenerated. Her head was buried in his neck; his arms loosely wrapped around her waist. They were swaying to the Christmas music Jackie had turned on. Snapping out of the memories, the Doctor puts the picture back on the bed. Slowly, he grabs the frame, and with ice-cold fury throws it at the wall. He can barely hear the sound of it shattering over the ringing in his head.

_Bargaining_

“I’m burning up a sun just to say goodbye.” He assures her that no species depended on it. What he doesn’t tell her was that that wasn’t the first. Or that while no species needed it now, centuries later, a beautiful new race would be born, one that would end billions of wars, and would become the most well known diplomats in the universe. Except now they wouldn’t. They wouldn’t even start to emerge. That planet would never hold any form of life. The Doctor had begged and pleaded with the universe, had prayed to every single deity he knew, for there to please be a different sun, one that would never nurture anything. But none showed. There was only one that was big enough.

_Depression_

Time passes. He gains a new companion, Martha, and battles the Master. Martha leaves to take care of her family after the Year That Never Was. Donna crashes into the Doctor’s life again. He meets River Song; helplessly looks on as she sacrifices herself for him. He survives. He doesn’t think he’ll ever really feel anything again. Then he hears two words. Bad Wolf.

_Acceptance_

“Does it need saying?” The Doctor can see her disappointment. It breaks his heart more than anything. But as he watches the metacrisis whisper those three little words in her ear, he knows that he’s done the right thing. She’ll have an amazing life with his double. As long as she’s happy, he can deal with the fact that it’s not really him. He can’t truly accept it, not ever. But he’ll continue saving planets and overthrowing dictators. And his hearts will always beat for her.


End file.
